The concept of hysteria as mirror of the relation between clinical and cultural psychology

Abstract

This paper theoretically examines how the psycho-pathological concept of hysteria has evolved since its emergence in antiquity, what causes contributed to it and how nowadays meaning-making systems of clinical psychology are mirrored through it. As has been shown, the transformation of hysteria is more closely related to the cultural psychology of feminism than any other disease before it. The 20th century in particular marked a significant change in the conceptualization of hysteria. From a highly sexist and paternalistic it became a political diagnose and finally was used, after getting banished from the psychological dictionary as an everyday pejorative personality adjective. It underwent a transformation within its gender classification, which was initially limited exclusively to women. Later, it became a psychiatric diagnosis, which was no longer durable nowadays and has finally changed into the concept of histrionic today. The analysis shows how, on the one hand, medical and biopsychological findings and, on the other hand, especially political movements and their cultural psychological processes of change form the basis of psychopathological concepts. It will be shown to what extent hysteria is exceptionally exemplary for this change in psychological meaning-making. In this context, the close connection between hysteria and the emancipatory development of our society could be emphasized.